


Not For Want of Trying

by inRemote



Series: Weekly five hunner [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inRemote/pseuds/inRemote
Summary: Byleth awakens to find the war already lost, and a new fight ready to begin.
Series: Weekly five hunner [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850134
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Not For Want of Trying

**Author's Note:**

> So me and yir good pal Oricalle made a pact to (try to) write a wee 500 word thing a week. So I'm gonnae put these in a wee collection. Hope you enjoy stream-of-consciousness first drafts!
> 
> Aye, I've already violated the word limit. Start as you mean to continue, I suppose.

It was funny, Dorothea had remarked, to think that the last year had been longer than the five that had proceeded it. Byleth could only stare, unable to fathom the bitterness in those words.

For five years after the Battle of Garreg Mach and Byleth Eisner’s subsequent disappearance, the Empire of Adrestia had been held in stalemate against the other nations of Fodlan. Emperor Edelgard had tried many times to regain the initiative, but the devastating losses inflicted by the Immaculate One were hard to recover from. 

That had been seven years ago.

When Byleth awoke, it had been to Church soldiers marching the accomplices of the Heretic Emperor through the gates and to the gallows. She had barely recognised Dorothea, beaten and dirty, but the familiar fire in her eyes still burning. Lysithea barely stood upright, her execution a mere formality at this point. Marianne trailed them, resigned to her fate, her cursed crest marking her as a mistake to be erased.

Byleth had been asleep too long.

It had been Mercedes who had ushered Byleth into the dormitories and out of sight of the guards. From the cleric, Byleth found confirmation of what she already knew. Edelgard’s lines had collapsed, and the Empire had fallen soon after. The Emperor was dead.

The Church had lost its mask of kindness with the last remnants of Lady Rhea. The arisen Saint Seiros had no need for such niceties. The land was brought to heel in a baptism of blood. Seiros’ path was marked with burnt flesh and loose fingernails as she scoured the land for _Her_. 

This wasn’t the peace Mercedes had fought for. Byleth knew, because Sothis had told her so. The Goddess herself had begged Byleth to stop her wayward daughter. Mercedes asked Byleth the same. And so the seeds of new treason had been sown.

An averted execution later, two heretics became five. There had been little hope then. There was no Edelgard to lead them, no Adrestian army at their back. But worse still was the feeling of failure that burned in Byleth’s gut every time she saw that flicker of betrayal and disappointment in Dorothea’s eyes. They spoke little, but Byleth knew. The lost love, and the blame that followed.

For the first time that night, Byleth found her voice. It wasn’t Edelgard’s war. It never had been. They had all seen the rot festering underneath Fodlan’s skin. They had all made the choice, then or now, to stand against it. It was still the right thing to do. 

The war they resolved to fight was not one of armies assembling in battlefields, but of hearts and minds fought for in desperation. There were no banners to unite under, no leaders to follow. Just a single cause: this cannot continue.

The people of Fodlan had suffered too long. With the pretension of borders removed, there was no question of loyalty. There was only the oppressor and the oppressed. And the former was far outnumbered by the latter. The ranks of the heretics swelled.

It had taken only a year for the Church and their Nobles to collapse as the very infrastructure they relied on turned against them. Seiros summoned her most loyal followers and set out to end the heart of the rebellion: the avatar of the Goddess herself.

“It will all be over with this.” She had declared. She had Byleth pinned to the ground as she once had Nemesis, once again ready to avenge her mother. “She will come back to me, and your kind will know their place once more.”

Byleth smiled, even as she coughed blood. “It didn’t end with Edelgard, and it won’t end with me. We all choose for ourselves. This is everybody’s war.”

It was true that Edelgard had been the one to cast the first stone. As Seiros ripped Byleth’s still beating heart from her chest, she could only thank her student for that. But it was maybe right that they wouldn’t survive to see the end. 

As the Immaculate One fell and the effigies of the old order burned, Byleth’s final hope was that there would be no saints nor kings to replace them.  



End file.
